The RadioRANGER Wireless Fault Indication System received the Utilities Telecommunications Council (UTC) Wireless Product of the Year Award during a recent UTC conference and exposition.

According to Lake Zurich, Ill.-based E.O. Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories (SEL), which manufactures the RadioRANGER, the product reduces the time required to find power failures by leading line crews to the location of underground faults. A crew can use the hand-held device to identify the vault or span of underground cable between two vaults in which the fault occurred.

"The RadioRANGER sniffs out the fault indicators and shows you which ones are tripped so you know right where to get to work, only opening the enclosures you need to gain access to the positively identified faulted section," says Edmund O. Schweitzer III, president and CEO of SEL. "The system came out of our search for ways to find underground faults faster and more safely and which pays back fast."